Frei Betto says that after spending more than 20 hours during four early mornings, from May 23 to 26, 1985, interviewing Fidel, he realized that he had a very precious material in his hands: it was the first time that a communist leader at the head of a socialist country spoke positively about religion.
Forty years after that dialogue, to which the Brazilian intellectual arrived with 64 questions, there is no doubt that he was not wrong: Fidel and Religion, the resulting book, has been published in 33 countries and translated into more than 24 languages, and interest in its contents is far from waning.
This is what transpired yesterday at the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, where a meeting to commemorate the four decades of the transgressive volume gathered, together with the author of the text, a diverse audience that included relatives of the Commander-in-Chief and religious leaders of different denominations.
Historian René González Barrios, director of the institution, said at the event, which was attended by Caridad Diego, head of the Office of Attention to Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.
Affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, and Christian Vargas, ambassador of the Cuban Communist Party.
